


Rather Than Words

by jehans



Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: American History, American Revolution, Canon Era, Historical, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehans/pseuds/jehans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has shifted between them as of late, and it’s not something Laurens entirely understands. He doesn’t know when it happened, but some time recently, Hamilton went from his closest friend — his dearest companion — to something different. Something breathless and quiet, that neither of them is willing or able to acknowledge. Something that lurks in the dark, in their time alone with each other, in the quiet moments before sleep when their eyes meet and they simply gaze upon each other without speaking, without breathing, and Laurens can hear his own heartbeat, and nearly swears he can hear Alexander’s, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleepless Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrid_fischer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/gifts).



John Laurens rolls over in his cot, trying to block the flickering light from his eyes by turning away from it, but the scratching of his companion’s pen on parchment continues to _scritch scratch scritch_ until Laurens want to tear his own hair out of his head.

“Alexander,” he groans in irritation, “for the love of _God_ , will you cease that incessant writing?”

Hamilton doesn’t even look up at him from his writing as he answers shortly, “Can’t stop, John.”

Laurens sighs in frustration and flops over to his other side in a manner he hopes with convey his displeasure to his friend.

A few minutes pass, but Laurens cannot sleep like this. He just can’t.

Finally, he sits up and levels his glare straight at Alexander. Who doesn’t even look at him.

“Alexander,” he says in the firmest voice he can manage. “Stop. We need to sleep.”

Hamilton glances up at him finally, but only for a moment before he’s writing again. “I need to finish this by morning,” he says simply.

Laurens sighs again and lets himself fall back onto the hard, cold cot, resigning himself to another sleepless night while Hamilton writes until dawn. This happens more frequently than Laurens would ever desire. He doesn’t know why it’s so difficult to sleep while Hamilton in writing — possibly because of the light of Hamilton’s candle and the sound his pen makes on parchment, but perhaps it also has something to do with the way he worries for his slightly younger, much more erratic friend, especially when Hamilton gets obsessive like he is tonight.

Musing about this, Laurens almost manages to block out the sound of the pen — until it stops altogether. And then suddenly, his cot is shifting and a blast of cold air hits him as his blanket is lifted off his body before Hamilton slips into his cot with him and huddles next to him, shivering.

“Um,” Laurens says slowly, trying to roll over to look at his friend, but having difficulty considering there are now two grown men stuffed into one small cot. “Alexander? This is not your cot.”

“It’s fucking freezing,” Hamilton’s voice hisses in Laurens’ ear. “My hands can’t hold the pen anymore, if we sleep alone tonight, we’ll freeze.”

He’s not wrong. It’s February and the cold is finally starting to break, but the last few months have been so devastatingly cold that many of their number have been frozen, lost in their beds.

Laurens wrinkles his nose in annoyance. “Let me turn over at the very least.”

Hamilton huffs like this is an unreasonable request, but shifts enough that Laurens can roll over onto his other side and look his friend in the eye.

Which maybe was a mistake, Laurens thinks as Hamilton’s eyes meet his.

Something has shifted between them as of late, and it’s not something Laurens entirely understands. He doesn’t know when it happened, but some time recently, Hamilton went from his closest friend — his dearest companion — to something different. Something breathless and quiet, that neither of them is willing or able to acknowledge. Something that lurks in the dark, in their time alone with each other, in the quiet moments before sleep when their eyes meet and they simply gaze upon each other without speaking, without breathing, and Laurens can hear his own heartbeat, and nearly swears he can hear Alexander’s, too.

Moments like this one.

Alexander’s body is pressed up against his, and all at once John is hyper aware of this fact. His breath catches and disappears, and he’s so aware of Alexander’s parted lips, of the deep brown of his eyes. Something deep inside him urges him forward.

He breaks the standoff of their stare and turns his head to look up at the ceiling, heart racing, to try and dissuade that part of him that absurdly wants to press his own mouth again Alexander’s. To kiss him like he would a woman. Like he would his wife.

“John?” Hamilton asks, and his voice sounds concerned. “Are you all right?”

“I am exhausted,” Laurens responds, sounding more annoyed than he truly is, and feeling oddly thankful for the deception. “You have kept me up night after night.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Laurens sees Hamilton smirk at him in that way he does when he teases. “I apologize deeply,” he answers like the little shit he it. “You are so deeply put upon.”

Laurens turns his head back to Hamilton to glare at him. “I _am!_ ” he insists. “You keep me awake until all hours of the — mlph!” His protest is cut short as Alexander suddenly lunges forward, closing the inches of distance between them until their mouths are pressed against each other.

John immediately falls headfirst into the kiss, pressing his body further against Alexander, holding onto his clothes with gripping fingers, trying to pull this man all the way into himself, to make them one single person.

Alex is just as eager, taking John’s response as a signal to go further, forcing John’s mouth open with his tongue and deepening their kiss until John feels like he’s being swallowed whole by this man in his bed.

And suddenly everything breaks on John’s mind and he realizes what’s happening. And it can’t happen. It has to stop.

He’s pulled away and is out of bed and on his bare feet on the frozen ground before he’s fully aware of what his body is doing. Hamilton is sat straight up in the cot, wide-eyed and panic-struck as he holds one hand out toward Laurens as though trying to calm a frantic horse.

“I’m so sorry!” Hamilton gasps, and his face is flushed with kissing. “Forget this ever happened, erase it from your mind, please! Just don’t expel me from your friendship, I beg you.”

Laurens frowns. “No,” he says automatically, but Hamilton takes it the wrong way and his face breaks.

“No!” Laurens cries again, this time to correct his previous statement, but that just makes Hamilton’s face worse. “No, I mean —” he darts forward again to the edge of the bed in an attempt at stopping Hamilton’s face from _doing that anymore_. “I would never — Alexander, you are the most precious friend I have.”

Hope rises in Hamilton’s eyes and he lets out a breath he’s been holding. “I am so sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean —”

“What possessed you?” John interrupts him, because that’s all he can think at this moment.

Suddenly, Alexander looks youthfully, comically sheepish. “I wanted to know how it would feel,” he admits quietly.

John narrows his eyes at his friend. “What?”

“Have you not perceived it?” Hamilton asks in disbelief. “God, I’ve been longing to kiss you for _weeks_. Why do you think I continue to write until long into the night? It’s all I can do to distract myself from you.”

Laurens blinks. What? “From me?” he asks faintly.

“Yes,” Hamilton says firmly, and his gaze is so intense, Laurens feels as though he might burn up right now despite the frozen cold.

He makes a decision. Although, he thinks, it’s not really a choice at all. If ever there was a choice, he made it long ago. He climbs back into his cot, next to his friend, and tucks his body in along Alexander’s until their flush against each other again. Alex just watches him closely, trying to read him, until John is in bed with his again, his arms circling Alexander’s body and pulling him in until their lips meet once more.

They kiss until early dawn, exploring each other’s mouths, and then, as they become brave, each other’s bodies with their hands, with their mouths. They discover the way John’s breath leaves his body when Alexander’s mouth presses hot against the soft skin of his throat. They learn how Alexander’s eyes flutter when John’s fingernails scrape down his back. There are things they don’t do — won’t do, not now, not tonight — but there’s a promise here between of them of curiosity and of devotion. Something of possibilities and potential.

Something, perhaps, more.


	2. Cold Light

Hamilton tries to hide his grin as Laurens once again shivers violently, then glances over at Hamilton and glares at him.

“This is stupid,” he mumbles for the second time, huffing in frustration. “Why is it _so cold?_ ”

Laughing, Hamilton reaches out and takes hold of Laurens’ arm, looking around furtively to make sure they’re alone before he pulls his companion close and wraps his arms around the man’s waist, holding him in a close embrace. “Let me warm you,” he says softly.

“It’s stupid,” Laurens says, still weakly protesting the weather, which is ridiculously adorable to Hamilton.

“You’re stupid,” Hamilton jokes, grinning, and that makes Laurens smile back at him. “You are stupidly amazing. You make me stupidly happy.”

Laurens is grinning radiantly at him now, and Hamilton can’t take it anymore. They’re alone, so he leans in and softly kisses this beautiful man in the light of the sun.

Laurens pulls away after a moment, looking dewy and content. “I should go,” he breathes, glancing down shyly. “I have rounds to do. I’ll see you again this evening.”

Alexander nods. “Until this evening, then,” he agrees, letting Laurens escape out of his hold, and watching intently as John walks away from him.

It is in this way that he comes to be sharply startled as someone clears their throat right behind him.

Hamilton spins around in alarm, but relaxes a little when he sees his good friend Lafayette standing just behind him. He doesn’t know how long Lafayette has been standing there, but the French man is as good as his family and Alexander does not fear him.

“Lafayette,” he says in greeting, “how are you?”

Lafayette narrows his eyes at Hamilton before he glances over his friend’s shoulder at the place where Laurens has disappeared, and then looks back at Hamilton.

“Alexander,” he begins, his French accent heavy with concern, “do you know what you are doing?”

Hamilton’s heart freezes, but he tries to scoff casually. “You don’t know what you’re talking about —”

“I assure you, Alexander,” Lafayette interrupts seriously, dropping his voice and taking another step toward Hamilton as a small group of soldiers pass by them, huddling in the cold, “I do.”

Something about this makes Hamilton angry. He doesn’t want to talk about this, and so he snaps, “Leave it, Lafayette,” and then begins to stride quickly away from him.

Until Lafayette shouts back at him, a hint of desperation clouding his voice, “I outrank you!”

Hamilton freezes. “I cannot believe you just said that to me,” he says, spinning around on his heel to stare at Lafayette. Aside from battle and times when he needs to be official, his friend has never pulled rank on him. Certainly never in order to manipulate a personal conversation between them.

“Lieutenant colonel Hamilton,” Lafayette continues in what Laurens refers to as his ‘Major general voice,’ “a word.”

Furious, Hamilton doesn’t have much choice but to comply. “Yes, sir,” he snaps, making his anger clear at least, and sharply marches after Lafayette as the French man leads him to his own cabin.

It’s only when they’re both inside and the door is shut firmly behind them that Lafayette rounds on him and hisses in French,“Do you have any idea what you and John are doing here? What this could mean for you?”

Hamilton bristles. “No one knows about us, _Major general Lafayette_ ,” he responds sharply, also in French. “No one sees us.”

“ _I_ just saw you,” Lafayette snaps back at him, “you were completely out in the open!”

“We were not,” Hamilton argues back fiercely, accidentally switching back to English in his indignance. “You walked up at an unfortunate moment. We don’t do that in public. Besides, _kissing_ another man is not against the law,” he finishes triumphantly.

Lafayette tuts in frustration. “Do you truly believe that anyone who catches you will assume all you two do together is kiss? Alexander, I do not care what you and John do in private. I am French. But others are not so forgiving and some would move to have you imprisoned, or worse!” His voice drops to a whisper and he hisses, “Alex, they could have you and John hanged.”

This throws Alexander a little. Weakly, he stutters, “We’re careful.”

Lafayette takes a step forward and his hand comes to rest warm on Alexander’s shoulder. “You know I love you, Hamilton,” he whispers fervently, “don’t you? You are truly one of my dearest friends, and I consider you as my brother.”

“And I, you!” Hamilton responds eagerly because it’s true. Lafayette is the closest thing to family he’s ever really had.

“Then heed me as your brother,” the other man insists. “Whatever you and John do, restrict it only to your quarters and never outside those walls. Please. For my sake and for your own.”

Hamilton swallows, his gaze dropping from Lafayette’s. He nods, and he can feel Lafayette’s relief in the grip on his hand. “You’ll not tell Washington, will you?” Hamilton asks as an afterthought. He couldn’t bear if the General knew.

“Of course not!” Lafayette lets out in a gust of French exasperation. “Alex, if I told him, he would be obligated to _dismiss you_. Did you not hear the news of Lieutenant Enslin?”

Alexander blinks. “No,” he says honestly. Then, back to French, “What happened?”

Lafayette’s gaze is somber as he says, “He was caught doing what you two are, I assume, also doing, and Burr court-martialed him. Washington dismissed him last week.”

Oh. Shit.

“You know I only say these things because I have the utmost affection for you,” Lafayette adds after a moment.

“I know. You don’t have to explain.”

“Good,” Lafayette says firmly. “Alexander, I could not bear if you were to suffer such a fate. I would be heartsick.”

Hamilton finally smiles softly at his friend. “I know,” he mutters. “Lafayette, I know.”

Lafayette fixes him with an intense look and says, “Please.”

Hamilton shakes his head, resolved now. He hates it, but he knows his friend is right. He knows he made a mistake. “You don’t have to worry,” he says in English.

Lafayette smiles at him. “Nonetheless, I will.”

Hamilton smiles back. They stay like that for a moment. Lafayette’s hand is still resting on Alexander’s shoulder.

“You both looked happy,” he says in a low, warm voice.

Alex can’t help the sheepish grin that spreads across his face.

“I am glad,” Lafayette says.

“Thank you.”

“I don’t ever want to see that again, though.”

Alex laughs. “Yes, _sir_.”

Dropping his hand from Hamilton’s shoulder at last, Lafayette rolls his eyes. “Oh, you are going to hold that over me for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”

“You pulled rank on me!” Alexander responds, laughing still. “Out of battle or official business, you’ve _never_ done that before.”

“I don’t intend to do it again,” Lafayette assures him. “Unless of course you force my hand once more.”

Alexander sputters. “Forced your hand?” he protests. “Sir —”

“Come now,” Lafayette interrupts him, smiling and holding a hand out to Alexander to take, “let us be friends again.”

Alexander reaches out and meets Lafayette’s hand with his own. “You are my brother,” he says firmly. “We shall always be friends.”

Lafayette grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of me is tempted to clarify that they're shaking hands at the end, not holding hands, but honestly I'm gonna let you read what you read.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Lily!!!


End file.
